Sweet One

by Peter Docker

  And Macca is standing beside her, holding out a glass of wine. She takes the wine, and clinks his beer. They both drink.

  The slight breeze ruffles Macca’s hair. He smooths it back into place. He has good hair. All grey now, but still thick and rich. His hair-smoothing automatically leads his hands on to smoothing down his blue suit. Izzy reaches out and straightens his medals, just a touch, more for the gesture of touching him than setting the medal board right.

  You look good, Macca, she says.

  Macca smiles. His face is worn, shining now from having already had a few drinks, but resilient. He takes out another set of medals, and puts them on the small glass-topped table. Izzy looks to him.

  I know he hated Anzac Day. But I like to take him anyway. Macca laughs, and his crow’s feet dig deep into his face.

  He might’ve changed, Macca.

  ‘They shall not grow old...’ intones Macca.

  Touché, she says.

  Macca drinks.

  Nah, I bet he’d hate it even more, he laughs.

  Izzy picks up the medals.

  But I’d be too lonely without him, adds Macca.

  Izzy strokes the ribbons.

  Do you want to have them? Macca asks suddenly.

  Izzy looks up.

  No, Macca. You look after them for me.

  Izzy puts the medals down. Macca goes to the little green tree in a big wooden pot at the northern end of his balcony.

  Do you want a macadamia? Grew them myself.

  He shows her the nuts growing on the tree.

  I spose you’d call it a bonsai. Bonsai macadamioso. Can’t eat em myself, because of the diver.

  Izzy sips from her wine.

  I’m not hungry, Macca.

  Macca drinks from his beer and wanders the few steps back down to her.

  You’ve gotta put it out of your mind. Get on with life, he says, and puts his arm around her shoulder.

  Izzy lays her head against him, her tight blonde curls falling against his blue suit, and his medals.

  Travelling back on Anzac Day? The Army have got a sense of humour, Macca.

  That’s one fucking word for it, says Macca.

  He pulls out his smokes and lights one.

  Oh, shit – are you still given up?

  No, Macca, she says, and forlornly pulls out a packet of menthols, and lights one up.

  They both laugh.

  This doesn’t seem like you, Macca, she says finally.

  Macca shrugs. Looks around. Shrugs again.

  Yeah, well. Divorce, lawyers, payments, ah ... fuck. So now I’m living the Gold Coast dream. But at least I’ve still got my bonsai macafuckendamia!

  They laugh, clink glasses, drink, and smoke.

  Oh, Macca. What if they send him back to me in a box?

  Macca squeezes her tight again.

  Josh is a good soldier. The best. You’ve gotta have faith.

  I’ve got none, Macca.

  You’re only the girlfriend. If he comes back in a box, it will be to his mother.

  Thanks for nothing, she says.

  They hug for a long time. Izzy pulls herself together.

  If ya can’t have faith ... Ya gotta develop a hard edge, says Macca out to sea.

  They both drink, and watch the growing wind begin to affect the surface of the ocean way out in front of them.

  What are you doing now, Macca? Going back to the RSL?

  Catching up with some copper mates. You’d be welcome.

  Oh, yeah, who?

  Just some mates. I can’t do the big crowd thing anymore.

  I gotta get back to Melbourne.

  He sends his regards, Macca says.

  Who? Big Bill? You gotta be kidding me?

  Macca finishes his beer.

  You want another wine?

  Thanks, Macca. Sorry.

  He tops up her drink. They stare out at the ocean. The sun is getting ready to go.

  Wake Up, Australia.

  (Peshawar, northern Pakistan)

  The one he calls Washington sits up in the half-light that is coming through the wooden shutters. Washington cradles his AK on his knees. Something feels wrong. Something in the fabric of the air has changed. He glances to the door. The thin wire wound around the doorhandle and attached to the wall appears untouched. At the window, the one called DiMaggio is at the shutters, looking out, his weapon held low. Then Washington sees the tiny flame flickering at the feet of the blanket-wrapped man against the mud wall of the small room. The smell of burning blanket is acrid. In the impossible cold of the morning, the man’s blankets are bursting into flame. Combusting for no known reason. Washington makes a noise with his tongue.

  Tsk!

  DiMaggio looks back to him, and then follows his eye to the impossible flame.

  Shit, says DiMaggio.

  Wake him up, says Washington.

  You wake him, says DiMaggio.

  Washington moves across the room to the sleeping man on fire. He hesitates. DiMaggio pushes him on with his eyes.

  Australia – wake up!

  There is no response.

  Wake up! Australia! Wake up!

  The man they call Australia does not move a muscle but his eyes snap open. Those eyes have the look of a man who didn’t know he was asleep. Those eyes have the look of a man ripped out of a dream, a man to whom reality is a shock. Or another dream. Australia is not his real name. It’s what they call him. It’s not a false name. It is true. Fiction often is. But not his actual name. Before he was called Australia he was called something else, and before that – something else again. Where he comes from, a man can have many names throughout his lifetime. Names mean nothing here – they can even be a liability, an unnecessary complexity, or a risk. The tall American he calls Washington is leaning over him – but not too close, speaking in a hoarse whisper.

  Australia – you burning up, man.

  Australia sits up. Australia has his big Russian pistol in one hand, and his kukri in the other. It is this second weapon, with its razor-sharp inward-curving blade, that makes the Americans nervous. When they got stopped at that checkpoint at the Rampura Gate in the old city, and Australia took the young QST guards out with the blade, Washington and DiMaggio wished they’d shot the kids first, even though they knew that gunshots would’ve been the end of them.

  Australia looks at the small flame at his feet. He kicks the blankets off him and kills the flame. He looks down at his feverish body as if examining something outside of himself. He is so hot that his dark skin is practically glowing.

  The piss bucket, says Washington.

  DiMaggio grabs the bucket and pours it onto a blanket. The piss is cold, having sat there all night. He bends, and wraps the cold-piss blanket around Australia. Australia seems calm. Washington gets him some water from a canteen. The piss-blanket steams against the heat of his body. Australia pulls it tight around him. His mind is racing. He knows that this heat is not a body thing. Heat has a texture, a memory, and this heat is not from here. This is heat that has hunted him out from half a world away. The two Americans look at him like they are looking at a ghost. This isn’t right.

  Australia pulls open his tunic to reveal the severe burn to his guts. The burn is in the unmistakeable shape of the rising sun badge. Only Australia sees this. DiMaggio grabs the first-aid kit. He rips open a shell dressing, pours disinfectant into the dressing, and applies it to the wound. Australia wraps the bandages quickly around his torso until the dressing is held firm.

  Then the sat phone, resting on a stool between the three of them, starts to buzz quietly. They all look at each other. Washington picks it up.

  Yeah.

  He looks at the Australian.

  It’s for you.

  Washington shrugs and steps back quickly. He is so tall his head nearly touches the ceiling of the tiny mud-walled room. Australia looks around as if trying to get his bearings. The room is dark and cold. The other American, the one he calls DiMaggio, is back at the windo
w, peering through a slit in the wooden shutters. A motorbike putt-putts past in the street below. A man urges his donkey in Urdu. They are all freezing. This snow is so unseasonal that it is unheard of. Something is out of whack.

  Australia rests the Tokarev in his lap, and puts the sat phone to his ear.

  Yeah.

  It’s me, Coorda.

  Yeah.

  Had a call from home last night.

  Who?

  Promised One. She was upset. Really upset.

  Wha’d she say?

  Forgive me, Brother. Jamu is finish-up.

  In the silence the line crackles and beeps.

  How? Australia’s voice comes from far away.

  Death in custody.

  What?

  In the van.

  How?

  Heat stroke.

  Australia holds the shell dressing tight over the burn to his lower abdomen.

  Where are you?

  In the city.

  Stay strong, Brother.

  Yeah. Stay strong.

  Australia gets up and puts the sat phone back. The cold-piss blanket falls to the floor. Australia shivers as if someone just walked over his grave. Washington sits back down on his canvas stool. He lights his gas cooker. The little blue flame slams the cold into them. Outside it is snowing. The snow is good for them, they keep telling themselves, trying to make sense of it. The markets are nearly empty. Anyone moving around is probably QST. The prevailing feeling now is not of cold but the gnawing emptiness of isolation. The cold is like the texture of the isolation. The men in this room have no friends in this country. Feel the alone-ness, the out-on-a-limb-ness. The two Americans look at the Australian. The heat thing is completely insane, and they can see that the phone call has rocked him. And they know him well. Australia stands. He lifts his qmis and nestles the Tokarev into his belt in the small of his back. The kukri he puts in the belt at the front. The qmis is so loose that neither weapon bulges.

  You want coffee?

  Australia is in another zone. His dark eyes are impenetrable. He picks up the cloth of his pogray, and winds it around his head into the turban shape with the distinctive end bit hanging down in the Pushtun way as if he’d been doing it all his life, as though he really was Pushtun.

  You cold, my man?

  Australia picks up the AK-47 from next to his blanket, and slings it over his shoulder. DiMaggio sees his intent and crosses to the door. It is a small cramped space, and the smell of the three men living in there fills the air and seeps into the mud walls.

  Whatever it is, you can’t change it from here.

  I know, replies Australia, but he doesn’t look at the American.

  Another week here tops, adds DiMaggio.

  Australia shakes his head.

  Sit down, Australia, says Washington trying to keep his voice steady, I’ll make coffee.

  Australia looks at DiMaggio, who is blocking his way. He nods.

  OK.

  DiMaggio’s eyes flick to Washington on his canvas stool. In that moment, Australia knees him hard in the balls. As DiMaggio is dropping to the floor, Washington sees the Tokarev aiming at his head.

  Don’t do it, Australia. They’ll kill you.

  I’m already dead.

  Australia steps over DiMaggio, undoes the wire, and goes out the door.

  The Afridi tribesman outside the front door jumps up, grabbing his weapon. Australia shakes his hand, and pulls the man in close, keeping the Tokarev aimed back at the door the whole time.

  Brother? says Australia, his voice ragged.

  Yes, my Brother, says the Afridi, and grips Australia’s shoulder.

  I must go, Brother, says Australia.

  Where?

  Home ... Family.

  The tribesman nods sternly.

  Honour ... Badal, says the Australian.

  Courage ... Tureh, says the Afridi man looking him firmly in the eye, and then embraces him fiercely.

  Then Australia moves carefully down the tight little corridor, down the rotting stairs, and out into the streets of Peshawar, the City of Hospitality, the City of Flowers. The Afridi man comes behind him, and takes off down a back alley without a backward glance.

  Australia is looking across the snowy street to the building there. That’s where the money is being kept. There should be two guards out the front. There is nobody. Shit. Something is going down. He replays the phone call in his mind. Is there a code there? What Smokey had to say was bad enough. The pain from his guts is searing now. Then he hears a vehicle coming. He looks down the alley where the Afridi man went. There is a crumbling wall a few metres in. Australia gets behind it and flicks down the safety catch on his AK. Washington and DiMaggio must’ve been faster than he thought in giving him up.

  The vehicle pulls up right in front, and two men jump out. They are both dressed like locals, as he is, but by their stances he picks them instantly as outsiders. It is two tiny things that give them away – the relationship between their hands and their wrists, and the relationship between their necks and heads. These relationships go deeper than body language, even though they are almost invisible to the naked eye. Australia knows full well that they can even help an individual ‘beat’ the image recognition systems that they analyse the drone footage with. The outsiders stand near the alleyway for a moment. Australia ducks down. Those two sets of eyes that he glimpses beneath turbans rock him. He knows both of them. Thorpe, the American who dragged him into all this in the first place, and Mort. Mort – who he called brother once. Those two sets of eyes tell him everything. If they look down, and see the fresh tracks in the snow, he is a dead man. But that look in their eyes, they are thinking about something else. They didn’t even glance across the road – they already knew the guards would be gone. The two men lift their weapons and disappear up the rotting stairs. Australia takes a breath. His body feels hot and cold at the same time. He is shivering from the cold piss. He hears Thorpe and Mort going up the stairs. He turns and goes, carefully placing his feet in the footmarks made by the Afridi tribesman. He’s only taken a few steps when he hears two short bursts of AK fire. Goodnight Washington and DiMaggio. Australia increases his pace, and is quickly deep into the narrow winding streets of the old city. Even with their drones they’ll never find him in here. And they won’t be coming in after him. They’ve got other priorities. They’ll come later. Australia lets this occupy his mind to keep at bay for as long as possible the terrible knowledge of the phone call and the burning heat in his lower guts. Let them come.

  Separate

  Howell follows the cop car into the car park at the front of the Baalboorlie Police Station. One of the cops, the one with the crew cut, jumps out of the squad car and waves Howell through the yard out the back of the big square building. Stockbow looks out to see Rankin standing on the front step of the station. Rankin glares at Stockbow, angrily stubs out her cigarette, and goes into the station as the Mazda drives slowly past.

  Oh, Jesus, we are so fucked, says Stockbow.

  Howell glances over at her. Stockbow is fidgeting with her iPod, and her knees are shaking. The crazy activity at the hospital set her off. She seemed fine before that. But as the trained medical staff kicked in with their business, Stockbow seemed to lose it. She used to do first aid at BHP, so maybe seeing them do it at Emergency set something off in her. Too much, too little, too late, thinks Howell.

  Just keep calm, says Howell through gritted teeth. We’ve done nothing wrong.

  Stockbow shakes her head. Howell parks the Mazda, and they both get out. The crew-cutted copper comes up to them from the gate.

  Follow me, he says, and heads for the back door.

  They go up the back steps and into the station. The back door brings them into the cells area.

  Eh, Sarge? Where do you want me to put these two? calls the crew-cutted constable to the big man at the charge desk.

  Who do we have here? asks the Sarge.

  It’s the van drivers from GPL4, says th
e crew-cutted constable.

  The big sergeant looks up over rimless glasses to take in Howell and Stockbow. They both look up at him, then away. There is a female constable leaning over the charge desk, filling in a form.

  I put their supervisor in the dees’ tearoom, she says without looking up from her paperwork.

  Has someone rung Detective Sergeant Bremmer?

  He’s on his way in, says the female constable. Didn’t sound too happy about it, she adds.

  Well, some of us work every bloody Sunday, says the sarge.

  You worried about missing church, Sarge? asks the female constable, her voice all innocent.

  The sarge smiles. He doesn’t mind the younger members taking the piss. Like all the cops, he is just relieved that they had nothing to do with the Old Man’s death. The crew-cutted constable is still standing there all hopeful like a puppy dog. The sarge nods his approval, and the crew-cutted constable turns to Howell and Stockbow.

  Follow me.

  They follow the compact uniform bloke down a corridor, and then up the polished wooden staircase to the first floor. He heads down a corridor there towards the front street, and stands outside an open door.

  In here.

  Howell and Stockbow wander in. The room has a table and chairs at one end, next to a kitchen area, and a couple of couches at the other end in front of a large-screen TV. Rankin stands over at an open window.

  Detectives Bremmer and Mapleton will be with you directly, says crew-cut, and steps out.

  Coming up the stairs are detectives Bremmer and Mapleton. They are both big blokes, and both wearing board shorts, thongs, and T-shirts. Bremmer is chunky like the colonial buildings of Baal, and is starting to go bald. Mapleton is a gym junkie. His big body strains against his clothes.

  Ah, detectives. Speak of the devil!